FEATURE: Spotlight: Kali Claire — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Kali Claire

__________

I did mention the wonderful Kali Claire…

last year, because Amazon Music recommended artists for this year to watch out for. As yet, I have not put her into a Spotlight feature. Here is a truly remarkable talent from East London. An amazing producer and artists, even though she has an impressive range of unique singles and E.P.s to her name, there are some that have not just discovered the wonders of Kali Claire. 2022 has been a busy one for her. Recently having supported Miraa May in London, she was just part of The Ultimate Seminar this year. Announcing the news earlier in the week, Music Week reported the following:

“The Ultimate Seminar has announced further names for this year's London event on November 19.

The event aims to inspire and engage with the next generation of music professionals. It follows the first ever live regional event last year hosted at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.

Free to attend subject to availability and registration, the London event this month takes place at 1 Wimpole Street - registration is open here.

Latest additions to the London line-up include producer and artist Steel Banglez, singer, songwriter and producer Kali Claire, artist, songwriter and producer Hamzaa, rising star Lost Girl, producer NK-OK, singer, songwriter and producer Daecolm, songwriter Taneisha Jackson, and rapper Ms Banks.

Speaking on her involvement in the Ultimate Seminar, Ms Banks said: “If I could just help one person with my experience I’d be happy, so when the opportunity shows itself why not speak?”

This year's Ultimate Seminar will include discussions on the music business with the Knowing Your Business, Major Mindset, Cre8ive Breakers, Scoring A Hit, Marketing & A&R Xchange, and Artist Breakthrough panels. The event will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn from top industry execs as well as artists, songwriters and producers.

Last year’s London event saw emerging artists Jaz Karis, Bellah, Dreya Mac and Cat Burns join the PPL Artist Breakthrough panel.

Following the success of fully subscribed 1:1 consultations, the London attendees will have the opportunity to book 1:1 consultations with top execs to gain insight into their chosen field.

The Ultimate Seminar is sponsored by Island Records, Warner Records UK, Atlantic, Parlophone, EMI/ Capitol, Columbia, RCA, Ministry of Sound, Virgin, TikTok, PPL, PRS, BMI, YMU, Darco Recordings, Hipgnosis and Sentric”.

I am going to drop in some of Kali Claire’s incredible songs from 2020 and 2021 through this feature. I feel 2023 is going to be the year when she goes on world tours, releases some of her best material and produces for some major artists. There is a lot of excitement around her. And rightfully so! I will work my way to an interview from this year. A lot of sites and journalists were keen to speak with Kali Claire last year. Having been tipped for great things, she has definitely fulfilled that promise! The Line of Best Fit featured her as one of the artists that we need to look out for:

“Just over a year ago, the Audio Engineering Society revealed a somewhat alarming statistic concerning the gender gap within the recording industry. Women, global research showed, only accounted for 5% of all audio engineers and producers currently working in the industry.

For Claire, that statistic didn’t come as any great surprise. Spending every available minute learning her trade in professional recording studios, or at home hunched over her laptop mastering the ways of Logic Pro, she’s someone who proudly obsesses over those finer – and sometimes overlooked - sonic intricacies.

And yet, during those studio apprenticeship years, she routinely felt like the lone female voice.

“When I first started out, it was hard finding the confidence in a studio environment, especially as you’re completely surrounded by men,” she explains from her East London home. “Men are the producers, the engineers, the mixers, the owners. I’m quite a shy person so it took me a long time to get to where I am now, where I’m more assertive and can say what I mean when I’m in the studio. That’s the reality of it: it’s a very male-dominated world. So if I can add to that small percentage of women involved in engineering or mixing, I want to contribute. It would be nice, occasionally, to look around in a studio and see more female representation. It’s something I’m really passionate about. It all comes down to accessibility, and making women more aware that these roles are available to them.”

Kali Claire, it’s safe to say, is someone you underestimate at your peril. When she first emerged two years ago, the 22-year-old could have been easily filed away as another budding starlet from British music's inexorable R&B diva production line. On closer inspection, however, she has revealed herself to be an artist of many wonderful facets.

Over a string of acclaimed EPs and singles, her songwriting, which is far from cookie-cutter, has pin-balled seamlessly between R&B, futurist pop and soulful, cinematic balladry. A fervent collaborator, she's worked with everyone from Not3s to Unknown T to Alicia Keys. Whether she’s addressing the aspirations of London’s working class communities or kicking back against chauvinist attitudes within the music industry, Claire’s resistance to glass ceilings is what firmly sets her apart.

Reflecting on her early experiences as a young woman in the industry, on being routinely undermined for her gender, Claire responded with a gutsy, pugnacious statement of empowerment and self-worth on her recent single “Disrespekt”. Patriarchy-smashing has never sounded so dancefloor-attuned, nor so edifying.

“’Disrespekt’ was kind of my letter to the music industry,” she says defiantly. “I’ve been in certain rooms where I’ve been made to feel like a lesser person. That my opinions don’t matter, I don’t know what I’m doing, that I can’t even operate a computer. All because I’m a woman. ‘Disrespekt’ is probably my favourite release so far because of what it means. It’s me expressing my power.”

Born in South London, Camberwell, but raised in the east of the capital, Hackney, Claire’s powers of expression were nurtured from an early age. Encouraged by her single-parent mother, Claire’s passion for music was both voracious and wide-ranging: an introduction to Bob Marley (“I got one of his albums for my fourth birthday”) was followed by a nineties hip-hop phase, then a deep, enduring love affair with Beyonce and Destiny’s Child.

Beyond her immediate family, Claire’s east London community was equally as important in her artistic appreciation. She talks with immense pride about the “opportunities, if you’re young, to create and express yourself” in her native Hackney. For the teenage Kali Claire, those opportunities arrived at the Hackney Empire and Twist Music Theatre, with whom she became a regular participant in their artists' development programmes. Tasked with writing, developing and eventually performing original pieces on the Hackney Empire stage, Claire was instantly bitten by the writing bug.

“I feel like that was my introduction to writing,” she enthuses. “The idea that you can create something, entirely from scratch, then perform it to an audience. There’s just something magical about making something that didn’t exist before. I love that feeling of starting a day, opening my laptop, opening Logic, and there’s a blank cloud. But, by the end of the day, I’m leaving the studio with a song I can send to my friends, to other producers. That love for creating something out of nothing, that definitely started from those youth theatre workshops. Just feeling inspired and letting your imagination run free”.

As part of their Women’s Series, New Wave Mag asked the brilliant and inspiring Kali Claire about her experiences in music and plans going forward. As I said, next year is going to be a massive year for her but, since last year, she has been busy working and creating some amazing music:

“How would you describe your music/sound?

“I would say my sound was a mismatch of everything I listened to growing up and listen to now Rnb, but pop but singer songwriter.”

What's been the biggest influence on your music and yourself as a woman?

“Being in the music industry. Surprisingly being around men 24/7 makes me most aware that I’m a woman.”

What has had the largest contribution in your life towards your music?

“I do this thing where I freestyle melodies, so off the top of my head. I feel like everything in my being contributes, because nothing is premeditated- it’s what’s already in me.”

Have you found it harder to find your voice as a woman in the music industry and what are some of the challenges you feel you've overcome?

“Yeah, but I’m the type of person who always has to be right .So It pushes me to prove everyone wrong. That I can produce, that I can engineer, that I can write my own songs.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Clarke

What advice would you give a younger woman, that perhaps you knew when starting out in music?

“ Be true to you, all the time. Then you won’t regret much.”

What facilities/types of support are needed for more representation for women in music?

“Studios! We need studios where young women can be introduced to the equipment, how it works, how sessions work. Just getting more girls in more rooms!”

What are some women that inspire you in life? Can be within music or out of it

“Every woman inspires me, every person intact. Life is tough and definitely much harder over the lockdowns.”

Do you feel there are enough support networks for women in music?

“Male or female there’s not enough support for creatives. The industry revolves around the creation, but the creatives are way too often not getting what they need or deserve.

What can we expect from Kali Claire in the future?

“In the very near future I’m going to be releasing a lot more music, and honestly I’m just excited”.

I would urge everyone to check out the phenomenal Kali Claire. Music Week featured her as part of their The Legacy Series: Gifted & Black - Women In Music x YouTube present feature. It is clear that she is someone who is going to blow up next year and take her wonderful music and production talent around the world. She is attracting the attention of some major names in music to boot:

“It looks like 2022 has been a busy year for you in terms of making music. What can you tell us about how your new project is shaping up?

“Since the start of the year I've just been writing. I've had time to think, I’ve had time to get out all the stuff that I want to say and just refine. Because I've been travelling this year, I've been able to work with so many different people. I love collaborating because it brings out a different side of me. [I’ve been] finding a sound that I want to focus on and making sure that every song has a story behind it – whether it’s whoever I made it with, or where I've made it, or just the actual meaning of the song. I'm liking it. It's kind of sad, dance alone in your room [music], but you could also be out on a walk, or on a late-night drive.”

You went to Diddy’s songwriting camp and met him – how was that?

“It was like a movie. I went to Los Angeles for a couple of days and there were so many different creatives solely there to work on his project, and the energy was amazing. I met Jermaine Dupri, Ty Dolla $ign and an amazing producer who did loads of stuff for [Kanye West and Jay-Z’s] Watch The Throne album. I don't really get starstruck but seeing people in the studio, doing what they've made a name for and gained respect for? That’s the part that makes me starstruck.”

And the Alicia Keys project you worked on?

“That was a couple years ago. I wrote at a Rihanna writing camp in 2018, or 2019. P2J called and invited me, he's just an amazing person and creative. Whenever I'm in the room, I’m grateful to be there. I never pass up on opportunities. I got there, they had already started an idea, I jumped on the mic, and we came up with Wasted Energy – and that was on Alicia Keys’ album [2020’s Alicia]. I feel like when you have a good song it travels to wherever it’s supposed to be or to whoever’s ears need to hear it.”

What’s your personal experience of the music industry been like? What’s been the biggest challenge?

“From a very early age, I was going to workshops and getting advice from people in the industry. I worked a lot at Hackney Empire, I did a project with Levi's and Skepta. I guess I was networking but didn't really know it at the time. I feel like the music is what ties everyone together – I feel so safe in a studio, or in a session, or when I'm collaborating with another creative. [The challenge is] having to know everything: making sure you're not being taken for a fool, that you're on top of what you're doing, making sure your songs are registered, that you're signed up to PRS and PPL. If you're going on a tour [you need to make sure that] you're registering where you played, if you're shooting a video it’s knowing what you need for that, and also finding people to mix and master and do artwork. And, as a songwriter, being able to figure out percentages with other people – the business, general communication and emails. There's a lot that is not music in the music industry, I feel like that’s my biggest challenge.”

You were breaking before Covid hit – you had celebrated releases, features, a support slot with Mabel. I know the pandemic affected all artists, but for new acts that threat seemed greater. How was it for you?

“It was really crazy because it was the polar opposite of what I’d just been experiencing. I literally came off a two-and-a-half-month-long tour with Mabel [in the] UK and Europe, and then a week after everyone was in lockdown. I went from meeting new people every day and travelling everywhere to staying at home. Mentally, it was crazy. Musically it didn't hinder me because I engineer myself. I built a little home studio to invest in myself when I first signed my publishing deal with Tinie Tempah in 2017, and it really came to [good] use in lockdown. I made a whole project via email, Dropbox and Google Drive links and recorded songs at home here, then sent them off for mixing. There's this crazy website where you can hear exactly what someone else is hearing on their end, so we mixed online, and I dropped a lockdown project. I felt like everyone was figuring it out at the same time. Some artists pushed releases back, but I didn't stop making music, so I didn't want to stop releasing music. I was in a creative space.”

You're still at the start of your career, but how do you want to impact the music industry?

“I want to make workshops available for anyone who wants to go, whether you're rich, poor, pink, black or white. My mum put me through drama school with the help of my auntie, I wouldn't have been able to experience something like that if they hadn't sacrificed. I'm really passionate about women in music because the facts and figures are just shocking to me – there's less than 5% female engineers in the whole of this industry. I learned to engineer by myself out of necessity, because I didn't have money to pay for studio time by the hour. No one really tells you how. I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's not super hard. If you put your mind to it, anyone could learn.”

Finally, what are your biggest ambitions as an artist?

“One of my biggest ambitions is to go on some sort of global tour, experience the world and create music on the journey. And do a session in every city that I visit because everywhere is so different in the way they create music. My biggest goal as an artist would be a debut album, it’s a big thing for me. [I’d love to] be able to work with all the producers, writers, instrumentalists, and the best engineers that I've met along the way, and all collaborate with no ego in one space, that would be amazing”.

One of the finest producers and artists round, I have been a fan of Kali Claire for a little while now. I am not sure whether this feature can do her full justice! Check her music out via Spotify and YouTube. I will keep a watchful eye out, as Kali Claire is going to go stratospheric. There is no doubting the fact that she is…